Dawn of the Geeks

The right has a lot to learn about making the best use of the internet to get their message out. Any time I look up a controversial story on Google the top 10 results tend to be mostly if not all left leaning.

Google Techs, Webmasters Mingle

Google’s code-talking experts, despite putting on a show of being helpful, weren’t about to reveal their “secret sauce” — Google’s tightly guarded formula for ranking websites.

But that didn’t zap the energy from the “Google Dance” — an annual summer party that’s become a metaphor for the behind-the-scenes twists and turns that can cause websites to rise and fall in Google’s search results. For the millions of websites without a well-known domain name, those rankings can mean the difference between success or failure because Google’s search engine drives so much of the internet’s traffic.

My Saaya Irie wiki entry exploded in popularity the last couple weeks thanks to a number 1 Google ranking for the name which led to links from very popular forums around the net. Making it to the top was due to utilizing both the blog and the wiki to get Google to notice it as well as from posting a link in the wikipedia where relavent. If you have actual content worth looking at, getting linked to doesn’t take a whole lot of effort.

The latest hoopla is over Cindy Sheehan. I’m still working on trying to get a wiki page for her into at least the top 10. Not being in the top 10 hasn’t stopped it from getting hundreds of hits however. If right wing sites would more effectively structure their sites to be search engine friendly it wouldn’t be difficult for “Cindy Sheehan” to turn up mostly right wing sites in the top 10. I think the right underestimates the importance of being listed on Google. When people hear a name on the news and want to know more information they hop on-line and search for the name using their favorite search engine which is usually Google.

Little Green Footballs blocks bots. It’s a hugely popular site but because it blocks bots automatically it’s not being indexed on Google. Michelle Malkin is getting some high rankings but that’s because she’s one of the few right wing bloggers who sees the value of static and indepth coverage. Blog entries are designed to go away and then so do the stories. Search engine bots can’t use a search box to find and index old news. More right wing sites need to dedicate static pages (like in a wiki) to big stories so that Google can find them easily and rank them high.

Google is the MSM. Many people hear the news on TV but they head to the net to get more indepth details that the TV stations don’t have time to go into. Controling the top 10 isn’t just good for business. It’s good for getting your political message out there.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/29/1434216

CINDY SHEEHAN: Right. Our family was against it from the beginning. Casey was against it, but he felt it was his duty to go because he was in the Army. And he felt that he had to go to protect his buddies, to be there for his buddies, to be support, and they are brainwashed into thinking that even if they don’t agree with the mission, they’re brainwashed into just blindly following it. I begged Casey not to go. I told him I would take him to Canada. I told him I would run over him with a car, anything to get him not to go to that immoral war. And he said, “Mom, I wish I didn’t have to, but I have to go.”

Kathy Dyer is a mother who lost a child fighting in Iraq who is urging people to continue to support the war and the fight for Freedom.

Cindy Sheehan is a mother who lost a child fighting in Iraq.
Maureen Dowd is claiming “The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.” Sheehan aparently believes she has this moral authority to demand a meeting with President Bush and is currently a puppet of the anti-war movement.

Since both parents have buried children killed in Iraq, which according to Dowd grants them both absolute moral authority, I guess we have a problem.

If the absolute moral authority of Kathy Dyer is rule then we continue fighting for freedom. If the absolute moral authority of Sheehan is rule then we cower to the terrorists. We’ll see which side of the moral authority the mainstream media takes.

It’s not like Dyer is the only mother of over 1000 American Troops killed in Iraq who still supports the war. The mainstream media while not afraid to make a small mention of someone who supports the war and Bush seems to be petrified of the notion of actually pursuing the story as much as they’ve latched onto the mother who hates Bush and hates the war. Even Fox News which the left bashes as being a tool of the Bush administration has failed miserably in talking positively about the war. Instead of pursuing their own stories of looking for positive gains in Iraq like this Blogger who is up to part 33 of articles detailing long lists of postitive results from the war, Fox News’ only concern seems to be attacking what the other stations are reporting.

In a rare moment of balance on CBS, Army Capt. Christopher Vick echoed that sentiment: “I think it’s hard for Americans to get up every day and turn on the news and see the horrible things that are going on here, because there’s no focus on the good things that go on. What they see is another car bomb went off.” This kind of coverage is exactly what the terrorists are seeking to achieve, believes Vick.

Mark Yost, who served in the Navy during the Reagan years, caused a stir in media circles for stating the obvious in an editorial in the St. Paul Pioneer Press: “to judge by the dispatches, all the Iraqis do is stand outside markets and government buildings waiting to be blown up.”

On CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” host Howard Kurtz asked Frank Sesno, a former Washington bureau chief for CNN, about the Yost column. Sesno acknowledged you get more depth from print coverage, but suggested “even then, the bias is towards that which is going wrong, that which is blowing up and that which is not working.” He said Americans ask: “Is anything getting rebuilt? Are they really democrats over there? How engaged are the Sunnis? Could I see an interview with any of these founding fathers and founding mothers of this new emerging country? Can you find that? You’ll have a hard time doing it.”

I think Fox News, if it wants to be balanced, needs to look into these stories and start putting money into developing them and giving them actual coverage rather than just following the MSM heard and reporting only on what’s being blown up and who’s being killed.

http://observer.com/thecity_thetransom.asp

Chris Hackett wanted to have the bomb completed on Monday. But at 4 o’clock that day, he was still out shopping for parts.

He said the strength of the bomb would be equivalent to “about four pounds of TNT. It doesn’t sound like much,” he allowed, “but it’s enough to kill everyone in the gallery.”

Mr. Hackett, who is an artist, doesn’t like to jaywalk; he crosses the Manhattan streets with caution. He looks something like a big paramilitary teddy bear, in work boots (his only pair of shoes) and all-black clothes. He’s in his early 30’s and has lots of big dreadlocks and many freckles. He’s a co-founder of the Madagascar Institute, a collective of radically minded artists in Brooklyn. This latest project, a functional suitcase bomb, will be included in a large art exhibition that will open under the auspices of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council a few days before Sept. 11.

http://laughingsquid.com/sfmad/

On Saturday January 24 [2004], Chris Hackett, Founder of the Madagascar Institute in Brooklyn, New York, sustained massive physical injuries when an explosive art-piece he was developing detonated in his face. The explosion left him with broken bones in his face, a broken jaw, and burns throughout his body. Like many working artists, Hackett has no medical insurance and no money to pay for the reconstructive surgery he will need for his face. In response to the explosion, the NYPD sent their anti-terrorism unit to The Institute and confiscated all of the Institute’s computers, maps of various spots in New York City, and other personal and professional materials.

Apparently being a dumbass is considered an art form these days. Back in the day being an artist actually involved talent.

Today on Slashdot:

bani writes “Spammer Scott Levine was convicted of massive data theft from Acxiom Corporation. Prosecutors say his company, the now-defunct Snipermail.com, stole 1.6 billion customer records from Acxiom and sold the data. He faces a maximum of 640 years in prison under the law, though he will likely be sentenced to far less. One spammer down, several million to go?”

Meanwhile they’re scream and whine about how downloading music, games and other digital things isn’t theft. There’s not a single comment correcting this “theft” word. In fact, there’s a highly rated comment stating that this person wasn’t arrested for spamming but rather for being a “common theif.”

It’s not just “copyright infringment,” it’s theft and people know this. They just don’t want to admit it. That would make them theives. Bad people. And they don’t want to think that of themselves.

Cindy Sheehan’s family is now telling her to stop according to The Drudge Report

Cindy Sheehan

One day she’s okay with him the next she rants and raves about Bush. The right is claiming that she’s being exploited by the anti-war side which is most likely true. But she also lost a son and she’s going through the stages of grief. At first she was okay with it probably in a bit of denial but now the anti-war side has latched onto and exploited her anger for their own gain. Chances are even she doesn’t even know what she believes but hanging around the anti-war people is just going to make it worse. They’re not offering her consolation and help. All they’re offering her is hate.

I highly recommend American History X for some very insightful commentary on how gangs work. How they feed on hate and anger in order to recruit. It’s ugly stuff.

IIS Windows XP Home

There’s an oddity for you. Running IIS on a non-server version of Windows. It actually is possible though without too much trouble. The only reason I even know this is because I ran into the problem of having a fully up to date version of XP Home on a laptop and now XP Professional is an older version so it won’t upgrade.

If it were my choice I’d be using Apache anyway which I also happen to have on the laptop for another work project. But unfortunatly one of my projects requires IIS. It’s actually not that bad. It’s good to be knowledgable in as many areas as possible. The more you know the more valuable you are.

Air America Scam

Air America is a liberal (they call themselves “progressive”) radio network which apparently took hundreds of thousands of dollars in money destined for charity (Boys and Girls Club) in order to keep themselves running. Air America’s ratings have tanked and so has their bank account.

Blogs are nice for getting the story out there but blogs suck for keeping the story where it belongs: number 1 on Google’s search results. Blogs are by design made to go out of date and so they tend not to rank high on Google. Wikis on the other hand are intended for archived information and as such tend to rank higher on Google for any given topic.

So, my goal is to get this story more publicity by pushing it to the top of Google. The goal is that searching for “Air America” will result in my wiki page showing up in at least the top 5. Unless you read the blogs the story is posted on, chances are you aren’t going to hear much about it. But everyone uses Google.

People steal music for the same reason they turn off ads on web-sites. They assume they have no intention of supporting the provider anyway. Well now that I force javascript to be enabled in order to download files from the larger portions of IcarusIndie.com the Dev Center/Drivers/Ringtones stats have gone up from 43% enabled to a little over 50% enabled and climbing. They actually share the same database entries. 52.4% of visitors to the main icarusindie.com page have Javascript enabled now. That number started at below 50%.

Ad revenue has also gone up. But what’s interesting is that the number of visitors hasn’t gone up. So am I just getting more visitors who aren’t afraid to click on an ad they find interesting? Or are the visitors who assumed they would have no interest in what was being advertised actually finding out that once they see the ads that they are interested? Most likely the latter.

People make a lot of assumptions. They sometimes assume that any site that uses Javascript is only using it for evil purposes like pop-ups and personal information collection. They believed the hype and failed to realize that javascript plays a very important role in many web-sites. Google’s email service relies on Javascript for the interface. Their AdSense account management pages rely on Javascript and AdSense itself relies on Javascript. Citibank’s account management site will stop working if you turn off javascript. It’s used for their interface. Just like my site, their server detects if you have it enabled and if not, shows you an error page and tells you to enable it.

It’s a very powerful tool. Sometimes people just need a reminder that sites do actually have legitimate uses for it and that it needs to be enabled. If a site is abusing javascript then stop going to it. The internet is not out to get you. Blocking out everyone from making use of a technology because some choose to abuse it is a little silly.

So turn on javascript, let the ads show. They keep this site running.